• View
• Edit
• History
• Print

ESOL Students and Using Technology

By Anne Heintz

In this portion of our FAQ, we’ll address the impetus for and implementation of technology in the ESOL BW classroom. Then, we’ll introduce trends in computer-assisted ESOL writing instruction. The first trend we’ll introduce is skills-instruction software. The second trend is asynchronous and synchronous communication in ESOL classrooms. Many ESOL teachers are using these forms of communication to help their students become less anxious, become more familiar with the language and each other, and develop writing skills that pertain to many different spheres of life. Interactive Internet pedagogy is a third and rapidly growing trend. Throughout the page, you’ll find Internet links to many ESOL resources.

Why should I use computer technology in my ESOL BW class?

The number one reason to use computer technology, according to the National Center for ESL Literacy Education, now the Center for Adult English Language Acquisition is “Learners like it.” Martha Clark Cummings in her JBW article provides a similar assertion: “What did seem to change (with the introduction of technology to an EFL classroom), however, were the students’ attitudes: toward writing, learning English, accuracy, and communicating with each other, their instructor, and native speakers of English in general.”

How do I begin to introduce technology?

When using technology, some good guidelines to follow are:

1. Identify your pedagogical goal

2. Identify the necessary technological tool.

3. Determine the resources needed to implement that tool.

What is CALL and how can I use it in my classroom? (Otte and Collins, 1999)

CALL is an acronym for Computer-Assisted Language Learning. A comprehensive website devoted to providing resources for teachers working with language learning and technology is http://edvista.com/claire/call.html. CALL has traditionally been used to indicate the research and development of this particular educational movement. CALL, in the current parlance, most often refers to software used in language learning instruction.

Is grammar software effective? How can I effectively incorporate it?

Grammar instruction software and editing programs are two of the most prevalent uses of CALL software. In their comparative study, Torlakovic and Duego found that the control of learning, immediate feedback, and lack of psychological ambiguities present in face-to-face interactions were pluses of using CALL grammar instruction software with a class of ESOL adults.

For a chronology and a bibliography of commentary on text-checkers, see http://www.bgsu.edu/cconline/haswell/haswell.htm

The literature comprehensively stresses that software should not comprise the entirety of pedagogical strategies employed by an ESOL teacher and that technology is a tool which must be manipulated by and cannot replace a teacher. (Canagarajah, Otte and Collins, Vitanova)

What is asynchronous (email, blogging, discussion boards) communication? Should I use it in my ESOL class?

Asynchronous communication is communication that does not occur in real-time. The most popular use of asynchronous communication in the writing classroom is email. For studies on email and ESOL students, see Morrison, Cummings, and Vitanova. The use of email for both creating authentic communicative situations and for creating more efficient forms of feedback, according to Vitanova, make the act of writing as a process more possible than previously when computer and Internet technologies were not available.

How can I incorporate synchronous (instant message, class chat room) communication into my ESOL class?

Synchronous communication occurs in real time. Examples of this are chats, MOO, and IM. Two major websites for language learning instruction, which provide a real-time forum for conversation, as well as many lesson plans and tools for language learning are Dave’s ESL Café and SchMOOze University. For studies on class chat rooms, see Chung et.al, Fitze, and Vitanova.

What else besides software and chats should I be aware of in teaching an ESOL class?

Internet interactive pedagogy is a third possibility of technology in the ESOL BW class. Sally Morrison discusses interactive language learning possible between teachers and students through the web. A guide for creating an interactive language learning website can be found at the Language Interactive website at Virginia Commonwealth University. The hypertextual and multimedia forms of communication that the Internet make possible are cited by Barry Thatcher as supportive of the more emotive, visual, and aural signifiers of high-context communication which many L2 students’ cultures privilege, thereby drawing upon their strengths and values in writing instruction.

What are potential drawbacks of incorporating technology into my BW ESOL class?

A flipside to synchronous communication’s “chatting confidence” was described by A. Suresh Canagarajah. In his New York classroom, his students felt that chatting and email were a “waste of time” because they didn’t prepare them to pass a writing test that they would have to take. In this example, Canagarajah displays the “effectiveness of the computer-assisted pedagogy seems to lie in the extent to which it is complemented by the other institutional requirements and policies.” (229).

Works Cited

The final chapter of this book features a discussion of multiliteracies and CALL. Unlike most of the other readings, this particular author is not entirely pro-CALL for the reason that his CUNY students are geared toward a final writing test, and they prefer the teacher-oriented, critical thinking style of instruction to a more free-form, collaborative, web-based instruction. While the author sees CALL’s place in teaching a necessary multimodal literacy, he/she also warns teachers not to make technology a fetish.

This longitudinal study is quite interesting because it pairs Korean students learning English with English students learning Korean in online communication. Since in each pair, each student is both a novice and an expert, the students had a range of communicative techniques that they used to learn from and teach each other. They were working on homework assignments they had in common. They appropriated what meaning-making activities they needed to in order to create a relationship with their chat partners.

This article describes an English teacher’s decision to make her English composition class, taught in rural Japan, a Computer-Mediated Communication course, as a result of difficulties with face-to-face communication in the classroom. The course consisted of a series of assignments which students were required to submit to a class website. The course featured mandatory posting to the class website, an email assignment, online peer review, and a final online essay. The author found that students became more enthusiastic about English language learning.

Fitze’s research revealed three features that differentiate written electronic conferences (as far as I could tell, just a more professional/educational term for chats) from face-to-face conferences. First, students in written electronic conferences expressed more interactive language functions which can benefit second language acquisition such as syntatic development. Second, written electronic conferences supported participation that was, if not more balanced, at least as balanced as participation in face-to-face conferences. Finally, students had increased lexical range which suggests that students had the opportunity to use and practice a wider range of vocabulary related to the topic under discussion. The implications for theory of Fitze’s study support a social-constructivist model for ESOL instruction.

Online language tutorials, exercises, and tests are available to anyone who has access to the Web. This accessibility makes Web-based language learning activities quite attractive to both instructors and learners. Teachers can even create their own interactive language learning activities on the Web, which allows them to tailor the activities to suit their own courses and students. This digest discusses some of the advantages and challenges for teachers who want to design their own interactive Web-based language learning activities, describes some of the activities produced by language teachers that are already available on the Web, and provides guidelines and resources to help teachers create Web-based activities of their own.

This is a page with many dead links. It was useful, however, in providing a table with examples of categories to be considered when designing BW curriculum using technology. It also provides many, many links to online grammar websites and useful journals for basic writing teachers working with technology.

This article looks at the pedagogical intersections between technology and intercultural studies. Thatcher argues that much of the technology in writing discussion has been framed by a Western perspective, and that hypermedia may make possible the inclusion of other value systems regarding communication.

The researchers worked with two groups of ESL learners. Over two weeks, each group was exposed to six hours of grammar instruction. One group was using primarily CALL software, and the other group had only teacher instruction. Both groups had identical tasks, and both were given a pre-test, an immediate post-test, and another post-test, a few weeks after the instruction. The computer groups showed intuition and confidence improvement. The in-class group didn’t show improvement. The article hypothesizes as to why these improvements were apparent in the computer group and not the other, and these reasons include immediate feedback, students’ control of learning, and lack of psychological effect that can come from negative face-to-face feedback.

The author of this article is a clear proponent of computer technology’s usefulness in the ESOL classroom. The three major areas of technology use in L2 education are computers as a writing tool, multimedia software, and the Internet. The article lists the advantages and shortcomings of these three different areas, supported by studies’ data, and scholars’ works. The article concludes with a reminder that none of these technologies replace the teacher’s function in the classroom, and revises Warschauer’s list of good practices for language teachers preparing to use computers in their classrooms.

• Working with ESOL Students
  • Classroom Atmosphere
  • Pedagogy
  • Using Technology
  • ESOL Bibliography